


Beneath the Lights of the North

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 00:50:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16482938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: While Sansa had been sitting around the fire sewing with some of the women of the free folk, she heard their talk, of what the lights in the northern sky foretold for a child conceived beneath them on a night like this, of the successes that awaited them, of how they would be happy and strong and wise. Of course, the woman who had first spoken of it had laughed at the tale, but she’d shot a knowing look at Sansa, who’d spent the past day mulling her words and wondering how best to bring them up to Jon.





	Beneath the Lights of the North

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsnow/gifts).



> For Jonsa Week Day 1: Father and Day 4: Mother 
> 
> When I visited Iceland earlier this year, some of our tour guides mentioned that it is a superstition in some cultures that conceiving a child beneath the northern lights is good luck. It turns out the existence of this superstition is a total myth, but of course when I heard about it I thought of Jonsa!

Sansa shivered and pulled her fur cloak tighter around herself, even though the wind was far warmer than what it had been at the height of winter. Most of the snows south had melted, but here, this far north of where the Wall used to stand, in the land of the free folk and the haunted forest, it still seemed spring had yet to arrive. 

The sun had set hours ago, and Sansa could see each breath she took cloud in the frigid air as she picked her way in the dark towards the dying fire, taking care to avoid the odd stone or twisted root that laid in wait beneath the layer of lingering snow. She found herself grateful that the ground had smoothed the further north they traveled. The path over where the Wall had fallen she could only describe as utterly treacherous, with what had been one of the wonders made by man that protected the realm for thousands of years shattered into huge slabs of ice that now laid littered, sparkling like dazzling danger in the sun. Perhaps one day when spring ended and summer enveloped Westeros again, the former charge of the Night’s Watch would thaw into the largest lake in all the Seven Kingdoms, but for now it made for a harrowing trek Sansa did not look forward to repeating on their return to Winterfell. 

No matter the difficulties, Sansa could not regret agreeing to join Jon as they accompanied some bands of the free folk back to their former lands. Sansa could understand those who wished to return to their true homes rather than remain settled on the Gift. Even when she’d been in the sun of the South or the crisp, clean air of the Vale and Winterfell had laid in ruin, frozen and surrounded by enemies, she had longed for it. 

At least here, where the haunted forest started to give way to occasional mountain peaks and valleys blanketed by snow, the land had maintained some of its natural beauty. They had also passed the areas where Daenerys’s dragons had melted the ice and scorched the ground, leaving it black and dead. Sansa could not complain much about the dragons though, not after they’d held the Others at bay long enough to evacuate the North, even if Winterfell hadn’t been so fortunate in the ensuing destruction, and after Rhaegal had given its life for Jon when it came down to single combat with the Night King, she no longer found it in her heart to hate the beasts, no matter what other chaos they had wrought. 

Now that the sky had at long last cleared of the snows and smoke, that of the dragons, of bonfires set to repel the White Walkers, and of funeral pyres, one of them the Mother of Dragons’ included, this far north it seemed to glow. For nights now the lights had appeared in the darkest darkness once the fires burnt down to embers. Some only shone for fleeting moments, and some took the form of long streaks or bright swirls, while others appeared in the shapes of arcs or curtains, in hues of blue, green, and purple. 

Each time Sansa saw them she felt as though it was the first, feeling the kind of giddy excitement and wonder rise within her she hadn’t experienced since she’d once lived in her dreams of knights and crowns and songs, and she’d been so taken by their beauty she had thought no more of them than that until the previous night. 

While she had been sitting around the fire sewing with some of the women of the free folk, she heard their talk, of what the lights in the northern sky foretold for a child conceived beneath them on a night like this, of the successes that awaited them, of how they would be happy and strong and wise. Of course, the woman who had first spoken of it had laughed, saying she was much too old for such herself now, already with a sizable brood of her own and her children grown, but she’d shot a knowing look at Sansa, who’d spent the past day mulling her words and wondering how best to bring them up to Jon. 

With the preparations to go north and then the journey itself, they hadn’t made love in over a moon’s turn. She’d been too sore after riding so long the first few days anyway, and while her muscles still ached from the strenuous exertion of walking miles over dangerous territory and searching out wood for the fires and pitching tents to sleep in at night, it was nothing Jon’s touch couldn’t cure. 

It was not that Jon withheld his affections for her, far from it. But ever since Jon had returned to Winterfell after defeating the dead and they had wed beneath the heart tree, there had been few opportunities what with the responsibilities of running a kingdom and ensuring peace in a new world. And even when they had taken advantage of those scarce stolen moments at what she thought were the right times, there had been nothing to result from them. 

Sansa attributed their lack of an heir to the stress of the war, of rebuilding Winterfell, of adjusting to wearing her crown as Queen in the North. Yet there were other concerns she held deep in her heart and never spoke aloud—if the hurts she had suffered on Joffrey’s order rendered her incapable, if Jon’s resurrection made him unable, if this was a punishment from the gods for all they had done to protect their pack. After all, her mother had conceived Robb straight away, and while they had never spoken of it, her five siblings attested to the fact that Lady Catelyn had experienced scant difficulty in this area. 

She made herself breathe. She needed to be patient, she knew. Fretting would do little to help. But when she thought of the idea of Starks filling the keep at Winterfell again, of the hallways and yards ringing with laughter and sword practice and other games, of boys named Robb and Brandon and girls named Lyanna and Alysanne, she felt as though her dreams had waited long enough. Those images were what had made her dress in only her boots and stockings, smallclothes and shift, along with her cloak, and leave her tent to find her husband. 

The hour was late, and the others seemed to have melted away after their evening meal, disappearing back to their tents as the night grew darker and colder. Only Jon still remained. She knew sleeping troubled him ever since he had returned from the war, and she hoped he would welcome this kind of distraction. 

Sansa could feel the red in her face rise for reasons other than the bite of the wind as she approached where he sat alone beside the remains of their cookfire. She had initiated such activities before, but she had never outright made a request like _this_ , nor was it a situation she had ever foreseen facing as a lady. 

Winter had taught her to be brave, though, so she sat down next to Jon and placed a hand on his thigh. Even through the fabric of his breeches she could feel him warm, as he was always. His skin seemed to burn from within, and she wished to share in that warmth, feel it seep through her, leach into her bones so she’d never be cold again. 

“Lovely, aren’t they?” Jon asked, pulling his eyes away from the sky to look at her. She could hardly bear to meet his gaze knowing what she was about to ask, but she offered him a tremulous smile that he returned.

“They are,” she said, exhaling her nervous breath in a puff of condensation. She shivered in her cloak, but the way Jon looked at her as though she neared the beauty of the lights above warmed her. 

“Thank you for coming North with me,” he said softly, his smile far more kind than carnal like the thoughts that plagued her. “I’m glad I get to share in witnessing such beauty with my lady wife.” 

“I—It pleases me as well,” she said, wringing her hands together. What if Jon only wished to sit and enjoy her company and admire nature’s show in the sky? 

Her nervous habit caught his notice, and he edged closer. “Is something the matter?” 

“This may sound silly,” she said, her voice abnormally high pitched. “But I overheard some of the women talking…” 

She knew many men would dismiss what she had to say, but Jon raised his eyebrows in interest. He always inquired as to what she had gathered from her meetings with their household staff or her visits to the winter town. “Oh?” 

His response gave her fortitude to continue. “They spoke of those who laid together beneath the lights… and how the babe that results from that coupling is blessed with health and good fortune.”

It was too dark to see if Jon flushed the way she did, but he didn’t flinch at her words. “Well,” he said, after a pause during which Sansa held her breath, “it would certainly seem we have need for all the good fortune we can acquire.”

“Truly?” she asked, unable to keep a hopeful smile from forming. 

He nodded. “May I make a confession?” 

Her smile broadened in encouragement. “What good is a marriage if secrets cannot be shared between one another?” 

Jon returned her smile. “Amongst all the things I’ve wished for, taking Winterfell back, surviving this war, establishing peace… I’ve wished for our family the most.” 

She felt her cheeks redden and something inside of her fluttered in anticipation. “That has been my wish as well.” 

The grin he gave her this time contained a hunger that had been lacking before, and when Jon reached for her hand and placed it against the laces of his breeches, she could feel him already hardening beneath the ties. 

“Here?” Sansa asked, feeling her cheeks heat further at the prospect in spite of the cold. She supposed at least her hand was now warm between his legs. 

Whenever she had pictured this moment, she had always imagined something intimate, perhaps on soft furs in front of the fire, or the bath surrounded by candles, and, in any case, the privacy of their bedchamber.

“We shouldn’t…” she began, but when she considered the idea, she had to admit to herself that she relished the prospect of laying beneath the sky illuminated by otherworldly lights with Jon, and she suppressed her apprehensions, her voice trailing off when she couldn’t think of a particular reason why she shouldn’t allow her husband to have his wicked way with her. After all, was that not what she wanted? 

“Why not?” he said, reading her concern and covering her hand with his. “We wish to enjoy the lights. And the free folk have no qualms about such.” 

She felt like a fool for wearing what she had outside until Jon drew her cloak away and his eyes darkened. “Sansa,” he said, her name more of a groan. 

Under ordinary circumstances she would have snatched the edge of her cloak back to keep herself from trembling in the cold, but the heat of his gaze instead made her feel hot all over. A distant voice in the back of her mind, the one who had spent years reminding her of maintaining her ladylike courtesies, told her she should be ashamed for how she was certain she had already soaked through her smallclothes, but it was impossible to listen to that train of thought now, not when Jon’s own very real, very near, very deep voice whispered how he wished to find out just how warm and wet she was between her legs. 

She spread them apart, allowing Jon to slide his hand slowly up her thigh, his hand warmer than the winter sun that had melted the snows, warmer than the embers that floated away on the cold wind, and when he reached the edge of her smallclothes, she nodded for him to slip it beneath. 

He teased her slit with his fingertips and groaned again, the sound obscene and carnal to her ears. 

“Jon,” she gasped. “This isn’t… this isn’t…”

“Pleasing to you, my lady?” he asked, a smirk playing around his lips.

“No,” she said, hardly able to think straight as he skimmed over her clit. “I mean, yes. It is. I mean, this isn’t how you make a babe,” she followed up in a rush before he could distract her again. 

He pushed a finger into her and she whined, the sound a weak, pathetic one that did little to convey the swell of desire she felt swirling inside. 

“I know, my love,” he said, adding a second finger and setting a rhythm that had her tilting her hips up to meet his ministrations. “But I never thought of that as simply a chore to check off the list.” 

She almost laughed until he pressed harder against her, and her breath left her lungs in a rush. 

Somewhere a long way off a wolf howled—not Ghost, she knew, the direwolf ever silent, but perhaps another pack somewhere out in the woods. She thought that a good omen too. 

Jon pulled his hand away, leaving her feeling cool and bereft by comparison, and moved to untie his cloak, spreading it across the snow. He urged her backward onto it, the cloak the very same one she had sewn and gifted him, the one he had worn when he’d gone off to fight a war and ride a dragon, the one he’d returned to her in, and the one in which he had married her beneath the heart tree. 

And even after all of that, she had never imagined for it to serve this purpose. She blushed to think of how she’d cleaned it of blood, dirt, and sweat, but never his seed.

In a way it seemed almost sacrilege to defile it so, but when Jon positioned himself between her legs, grinding his hips into hers, Sansa knew she could have laid atop her maiden cloak embroidered with ivory silk and lace and pearls and she would not given it a second thought. 

Jon stripped off his shirt and pressed his hot skin against hers before her eyes could linger on his scars, both those his brothers had left him with at Castle Black and others whose sources seemed as though they’d come from the stories they had heard as children: dragons and wargs and ice creatures come back to life. He no longer seemed to feel the cold, and even though Sansa certainly still did, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to mind now, not what with the contrast between the way he burned ever since he lived again and the ice at her back. 

As they kissed, she wondered if Jon had wished for this all along too, if he found their chambers at Winterfell stifling, where the hot springs ran through, where he always laid atop the furs, and where he opened the window to let the air in after their couplings, to cool his skin slick with sweat. She wondered if this was where they were meant to be instead, outside like wolves, staring up at the ethereal lights and the sky full of the stars. 

He slid away her smallclothes and bared herself to him. She shamelessly allowed her legs to fall apart, not frigid or embarrassed, only eager and wanting. Despite the cold, or maybe because of it, she felt heat flood between her thighs as he looked over her cunt, and she wondered what he could see of her in the dim, dancing light. It made no matter that she couldn’t see his face or hear his groan over the soft cracking of the dying fire and the wind as she could feel it reverberate through every fiber of her body when he put his mouth on her. 

She whined, the sound a high keen like that of splintering ice, feeling as though she herself similarly melted and fissured beneath the wet, hot slide of his tongue. 

“Jon,” she said, his name more of a strangled sigh. When he only pressed harder against her, she tugged at his hair, knowing he likely couldn’t hear her voice, that he could only read her body and its desire. She pulled him back up, too cold now without his warmth to blanket her, and even in the darkness she could see the way his lips and beard glistened with her arousal. 

His hands were cold at first, but they quickly warmed as he stroked them over her curves and down to remove her shift. She squealed and he smirked as he palmed her breasts, rubbing a bit of the cold snow that quickly turned to water on her heated skin there, her nipples hardening in response before he sucked each of them in turn into his mouth, the swirl of his tongue around each tip making her throb for more. 

Her fingers fumbled for the ties of his breeches, and she worked the laces free while he seemed to make it his mission for his lips to touch every part of her: the tender skin behind her ear, the curve of her neck, the juts of her collarbone. As he worshipped her, she freed his cock and wrapped her fingers around it, the way it jumped at her attentions and the way his eyes closed in bliss causing satisfaction to curl through her. 

They kissed as Jon kicked free of his boots and breeches until he was as naked as she was. It was far from the first time she had seen him so, yet it seemed all the more striking to see him unclothed out here in the open, more wild, more free. He settled between her legs, his length sliding with ease along the wetness of her folds. 

When Jon pushed his cock into her it was only hot, the way he rubbed against that sweet spot between her legs causing a kind of warmth no furs or woolen dress could provide to slink through her. As she arched her back he sank deeper, her hands sliding down his back to hold him closer, her nails scraping as she ran them over him in a silent plea for more. 

She muffled the sounds she couldn’t help but make in the crook of his shoulder, hoping they would sound like nothing more than the whip of the wind or the sound of the wolves wailing in the distance. With the heat of Jon atop her, the snow soft through the cloak against her back, and the thrill of being outside beneath the dazzling lights, though, she found she didn’t quite care about being heard anymore.

His strokes came faster and harder, and she wondered how she felt to him, if she felt as hot to him as he did to her, if her cunt was even hotter than the way his skin seared against hers. She imagined what she looked like to him in the dim light—if her blue eyes reflected back the way his had turned dark, if her chest flushed as red as her hair compared to the white snow. 

She cried out when he slipped his hand between them, and he responded with a grunt as she clenched tighter around him. His thumb strummed against her, and that combined with the knowledge that Jon too neared his peak prompted her release, pleasure winding through her, the feeling of bliss better than even the heat that coursed through her. Jon stuttered and spilled a mere moment later, holding himself inside her until he softened and then collapsing beside her on his cloak. 

She curled up against him, drawing the edge of the cloak around her back even though she knew it would be awhile before she would sense the cold again, not with Jon beside her. She was in no rush to dress again, nor to get up and return to their tent, where it would seem too cramped, too suffocating, too dark after laying outside. 

“It may be moons before we know if it worked,” she whispered as they laid huddled in the expanse of so little else but snow and sky and stars. 

“That’s all right,” he said, his hand stroking through her hair and his lips pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. 

“Because in the mean time we can try again all we’d like?” she teased. 

He shrugged, not denying it. “Because I think it already did.” 

She wrapped the ends of a few of his stray curls around her finger, and he placed a kiss in her palm. “Are you so confident?”

“I won’t deny I don’t know much about that,” he said, placing a warm hand on her stomach before his eyes flitted up to meet hers again. “But I like to think I’m already fortunate enough.”

He kissed her again, a real one this time on her lips, with enough passion to make her blood run hot again, and the lights only seemed to glow brighter in the sky.


End file.
